Your buying strategy for guitar cables...

Supportact

My longest serving guitar cables are two Mogami cables I got years ago, and one I had made up by a random Ebay seller (van Damme blue cable and neutrik plugs). Also had good use from an MXR brand one but not had that as long.

More recently I've been making my own up out of some spare instrument cable I had knocking about. I've found this especially convenient for patch cables as you can make them up to the exact length you need, as opposed to off the shelf ones. 

NicoAdie

Van Damme cable, Neutrik plugs

randella

guitars4you said:

Around 22 years ago I had a senior role within the Academy of Sound - At the time we had 10 stores, more in the midlands/north - As was common with the likes of Dixon's and PC World and now the likes of Thomann etc, we looked at the idea of our own 'brand name' on all the cables 

Midi, mic, guitar, patch, speaker etc etc - 2 price points - mid/low and top quality - Low end we looked at Stagg and top quality we had 2/3 meetings with Horizon, a USA brand of similar quality to Whirlwind - As such all cables would have been branded with a corporate name, be it AOS or Academy of Sound etc - As a big Leeds fan I proposed a play on words based on Super Leads

As it happens it never got off the ground, in part as I left AOS and shortly after they sold out to Sound Control  

Ah, hard luck. Well, the name tickled me. I remember once seeing a Newcastle-based brewery who had a Christmas ale called "Howay in a Manger".

As for cables - should really answer after all

Cable is good quality screened stuff for guitar, boggo twin-core mains flex for speakers. For jacks, I like "Yorkshireman's Neutrik", aka REAN.

I've rehearsed, gigged, and trodden on those cables for years and they're still going strong.

Stratavarious

Van Damme and Neutrik DiY here too.. Get a 100m reel to make loads of various lengths. 

Wazmeister

Sadly, as an ex audiophile, Ive been down this rabbit hole…

My conclusion - there is little differnce sound wise, through a guitar and amp.

Like, others I tend to buy for build quality now, and go for Van Damme and (silent) Neutriks

Boromedic

I buy cables, always with Neutrik connectors, I have had Van Damme XKE, but whilst it's easily handled being more compliant, they're the only ones I've had that have broken. Now I'm talking 3 cables over 13 years, but I've also had 2 Sommer Spirit XXL cables over the same time and they're as good as new. Plus I'm really anal with winding them up as I hate buying cables, so I'm a bit miffed at the Van Damme. Only downside is the Sommers are stiffer, but I'll not be buying Van Damme again. I've just bought some Sommer SC cables so I'm hoping they're as good as their brethren.

Secondly, unless you're making up new cables every year or so, you're not really saving much over the years. I've bought 6 cables in 13 years, soldering them myself would've cost me the same as the difference as I'd have to buy a soldering iron and stuff

kennedydream1980

The last guitar cables I purchased were these:

https://www.thomann.de/gb/cordial_cri_3_pp.htm

Pete Thorn reviewed them on his YouTube channel and really liked them. That was good enough for me.

robinbowes

Wazmeister said:

Sadly, as an ex audiophile, Ive been down this rabbit hole…

My conclusion - there is little differnce sound wise, through a guitar and amp.

Like, others I tend to buy for build quality now, and go for Van Damme and (silent) Neutriks

You're right about build quality being important, but the choice of cable can make a difference to the sound due to the inherent capacitance of the cable and interaction with the guitar pickups.

There's some useful information here: https://www.shootoutguitarcables.com/guitar-cables-explained/capacitance-chart.html

R.

robinbowes

kennedydream1980 said:

The last guitar cables I purchased were these:

https://www.thomann.de/gb/cordial_cri_3_pp.htm

Pete Thorn reviewed them on his YouTube channel and really liked them. That was good enough for me.

Neutrik jacks with cable somewhere between Sommer Spirit XXL and Van Damme PRo Grade XKE.

They should be good solid cables.

R.

Rich31k

I’ve just bought some Fender Deluxe cables to replace some crappy ones I’ve had for years. Music Room have 50% off on a bunch of lengths at the moment. 

https://www.musicroom.com/search?q=Fender+deluxe

They have quite a few other bits (drum sticks, tuners etc) in their clearance sale. 

marxski

If you go down the DIY route I recommend not using Seetronic jacks which I believe is Neutric’s budget brand. The tip pin is a slightly different shape and is a tiny bit longer than any other jack I’ve seen. Baffling. They did not like my Strat. Any other jack were totally fine.

distressed

I have few Planet Waves which survived 10+ years of heavy abuse. Plus few Ernie Ball ones for 5+ years.

BigPaulie

My strategy is looking on Amazon for a cable.
Checking the reviews.
Buying the one with the best reviews by a manufacturer I've heard of (no Shixien cables here, thank you very much).
Opening the cable once delivered.
Putting said cable in my bits box.
Discovering that my son has taken said cable to band practice or a gig.
Playing my acoustics.

guitarjack66

Chimpankie said:

I got sick of dealing with cables failing so just bought four mogami cables 3-4 years ago. Expensive upfront but haven’t caused me any problems. Sure they’ll fail at some point but we’ll see.

The longest lasting cable I ever had was a Venom cable, not sure what model either cobra or python, that lasted me 17 years (including some periods of heavy gigging). Outlasted every other single cable I bought in that period including various flavours of Fender.

I see an animal theme there. 

randella

Chas Chandler?

guitarjack66

randella said:

Chas Chandler?

Here I Go Again on my own!

digitalkettle

Been around the block with it a few times...ended up with what feels like a lifetime's supply of Pete Cornish cables.

It's okay buying Vovox Sonorus but it's got to be able to withstand a singer standing on it every five minutes

Brad

digitalkettle said:

Been around the block with it a few times...ended up with what feels like a lifetime's supply of Pete Cornish cables.

It's okay buying Vovox Sonorus but it's got to be able to withstand a singer standing on it every five minutes

These, along with cockroaches, could survive a nuclear winter. 

Boromedic

digitalkettle said:

Been around the block with it a few times...ended up with what feels like a lifetime's supply of Pete Cornish cables.

It's okay buying Vovox Sonorus but it's got to be able to withstand a singer standing on it every five minutes

These seem not too unreasonably priced actually, do you buy them direct from Cornish? 

Jonathangus

Boromedic said:

digitalkettle said:

Been around the block with it a few times...ended up with what feels like a lifetime's supply of Pete Cornish cables.

It's okay buying Vovox Sonorus but it's got to be able to withstand a singer standing on it every five minutes

These seem not too unreasonably priced actually, do you buy them direct from Cornish? 

A 5m cable is £75 plus VAT!  http://www.petecornish.co.uk/cabprice.html

Personally, I can get Cleartone cables from Award-Session (Van Damme/Neutrik) for about the price it would cost me to buy the bits and build them myself.  So grab some before Stewart shuts up shop.